I'm currently reading John Dies at the End, The Investigators of Arkham Horror, Skeptic magazine, board game rules, the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy, the complete works of Lovecraft, and the King James Bible.

After finishing Ta-Nehisi Coates' We Were Eight Years in Power, I realized I'd never read The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. It's a brief book and very powerful. Given special attention are the devoutly religious masters Douglass had, men who unfailingly were the most inhumane that Douglass was able to observe.

I did a search of “booktalk.org Lovecraft,” and I was surprised to find that there’s no thread devoted to him or his writing. H.P. Lovecraft. Horror, early 20th century. Maybe there IS a thread but I missed it. This is the one that turned up in the search, and I see that Lovecraft is mentioned.

At any rate, I’ve put together a page of audiobook recordings of his work. Link below:

To my ear the prose is well suited to the audiobook format. It’s mostly large chunks of descriptive writing, with little to no dialogue (voice actors trying to imitate characters’ speech often sound...forced).

You can right-click the links on the page to open the pdf and a recording at the same time, to read along if you want. I recommend listening/reading to “Dagon” at least. It’s less than 15 minutes long and is a good introduction to Lovecraft’s work. Some consider him to be the father of “cosmic horror.”

I've spent the past few days focused on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I came across a reading of it that I liked and wanted to post it, the recording, along with a pdf of the poem. But I couldn't find a decent pdf, so I put one together.

The first link goes to the pdf, the second to the recording. You can right-click each for opening in separate windows, if you want to read and listen at the same time.

I really like the recording. Atmospheric music and sound effects, and the inimitable Orson Welles reading. The recording's about 40 minutes long and worth listening to, IMHO. Welles was great at this kind of work.

These are new links and sometimes they're hinky. But they should work. You can save the pdf to your hard drive.

I am currently reading Sahara by Michael Palin. It is the basis of the TV series of the same name. While I have seen the series, I thought reading the book would enhance the experience. I'm less than half way through it but it is immensely enjoyable with some fantastic photographs to boot.

I'm putting together a web page about Damon Runyon, so I've read a couple of his stories lately. He was a newspaperman and short story writer. I believe the bulk of his fiction is contained in 3 books published in 1937-38. All 3 of them are in this pdf:

Interesting coincidence, crios, as I also just completed "The Left Hand of Darkness." An older book, but a good one. Currently (not unusual for me to be reading more than one book at once), I am reading "The Traveling Cat Chronicles," by Hiro Arikawa. Originally written in Japanese, I am reading the translation by Philip Gabriel. Deeper than the title sounds, I may recomment it for discussion in the Fiction Book forum.

_________________Love what you do, and do what you love. Don't listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. -Ray Bradbury

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. -Robert A. Heinlein

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